Free Josh Gordon!
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http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/features/josh-gordon-will-flash-ever-find-his-way-20150831
Josh Gordon: Will 'Flash' Ever Find His Way?
Suspended for all of 2015 for violations of the NFL's substance abuse policy, Cleveland's star wide receiver plays the waiting game
By John B. Thompson August 31, 2015
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Missing in Action: Josh Gordon won't take the field for the Browns in 2015. Scott Cunningham/Getty
Cleveland's Josh Gordon might be the most talented wide receiver in the NFL, but he won't be on the field this season. He's not even allowed near team facilities. When Gordon entered the NFL in 2012, the NFL placed him under strict observation after Baylor and Utah both cut him for smoking marijuana. Once he touched turf, Gordon displayed tremendous promise, tying for second in touchdowns among rookie wideouts in 2012, leading the entire league in receiving yards in 2013 and burning defenders so badly he earned the nickname "Flash."
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About that 2013 season: Gordon missed the first two games after testing positive for codeine, a development portending disaster. Since then, his career has disintegrated into endless drug tests and violations. In 2014, he lost ten games – reduced from an initial season-long ban – for smoking marijuana and received probation after a DWI violation. This winter, he was suspended for the 2015 season after four drinks with his teammates and one of his coaches on a flight to Las Vegas.
"I thought that the league-imposed restriction on drinking had expired at the end of the regular season," he wrote in an open letter in January. "Upon landing, I received the all-too-familiar notice by phone that I was to report to a testing location within four hours. I failed the test, obviously, and the rest is history."
While on its face, Gordon's tale seems like another sob story about squandered potential, it actually points to the injustice of the NFL's draconian drug policy. Despite floundering in scandals regarding what players do to others (concussions, domestic violence), the NFL intensely polices what players do with their own bodies to the point of absurdity. Gordon had to pee in a cup 180 times in his first two years in the league. He passed all but a few of those tests; last season, the one busting him for THC registered barely 16 nanograms per milliliter, almost ten times lower than the World Anti-Doping Agency's benchmark of 150 nanograms but still unacceptable by NFL standards. But things are easing up. Last year, the players union achieved a landmark revision of the NFL's drug policies, increasing the threshold for marijuana tests and reducing penalties for violations.
"The main achievement was certainty: The penalties were made consistent, there are clearer benchmarks for getting out of the drug program and there's more transparency regarding the science," says NFL Players Association spokesman George Atallah. "The players also moved the focus to getting players support rather than receiving punishment."
The new policies saved Gordon's 2014 season, but they couldn't save him from the mistake of drinking alcohol on a plane to Vegas. Still, Gordon has said and done the right things on a public apology tour, even voluntarily checking himself into rehab last summer, where he was told to talk to a horse. "It's definitely some hippie shit," he told ESPN The Magazine. This offseason, he trained with NFL legend Randy Moss to stay in game shape. Despite Gordon's public flagellation and the tenuous evidence for his suspensions, Cris Carter ("I really think that the only thing that's going to help the kid is if they release him") and Charles Barkley ("Josh Gordon is going to die if he keeps going on this road he's going") have already written him off as a lost cause. Gordon, however, insists he has no real problem, and no one has yet proven otherwise.
"If I have a 'problem,' it is that I am only 23 years old – with a lot left to learn," Gordon wrote in his open letter. "And I truly believe that what I am going through right now will only make me stronger. I believe that my future is bright."
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??????
gordon has been popped with hot piss more times than you've had a girl in your lap.
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D bone you are a douchebag my friend. Anyone that follows the Browns and knows ANYTHING about the Browns and Gordon's situation should know better than to open their belittling cocksucker.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. -Mark Twain- "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." -Mark Twain- -
It utterly sickens me that they can do what they are doing to Josh. But, Tom Brady gets his suspension lifted and goes scot free. Josh's limit under which he failed that drug test only for them to raise the level to that to which he would have passed only to retroact his test to suspend him 10 games anyway. Then for that to accumulate his latest test which suspends him for a year... the Browns season was over when that happened. I feel the punishment for Josh Gordon is unfair not only to the Browns Organization but to Josh and the Fans as well. I want his suspension rescinded immediately.. it's only fair in light of this latest ruling.
It utterly sickens me that they can do what they are doing to Josh. But, Tom Brady gets his suspension lifted and goes scot free. Josh's limit under which he failed that drug test only for them to raise the level to that to which he would have passed only to retroact his test to suspend him 10 games anyway. Then for that to accumulate his latest test which suspends him for a year... the Browns season was over when that happened. I feel the punishment for Josh Gordon is unfair not only to the Browns Organization but to Josh and the Fans as well. I want his suspension rescinded immediately.. it's only fair in light of this latest ruling.
D Bone beat me to it- Life isn't fair. Those are the rule on dope. If you think Josh didn't very clearly, about 5 times have the restriction he was under explained to him- well, he's dumber than a box of rocks.
Of course, having a few drinks on a plane during the off season and getting suspended for a year because of it is monumentally unfair. Josh has had a ton of chances before that to fly right though. I didn't know the rule is the same as a kid saying the dog ate my homework.
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Just listen, he passed nearly 180 piss tests. The league is being unfair in it's discipline of Josh Gordon, period.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. -Mark Twain- "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." -Mark Twain- -
To suspend him for an entire YEAR for one misunderstood flight? That's harsh by any standards. He restrained from smoking or drinking anything the entire season... it was a misunderstanding. He wasn't smoking crack and getting popped fucking prostitutes, it was a couple drinks with teammates and coaches celebrating the season. So had the Browns won the Superbowl Josh would have been suspended for having a glass champagne? It's ridiculous and if you understand this and continue to side with the NFL on this then you are also draconian and OFFSIDES~
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. -Mark Twain- "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." -Mark Twain- -
Good day.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. -Mark Twain- "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." -Mark Twain- -
It utterly sickens me that they can do what they are doing to Josh. But, Tom Brady gets his suspension lifted and goes scot free. Josh's limit under which he failed that drug test only for them to raise the level to that to which he would have passed only to retroact his test to suspend him 10 games anyway. Then for that to accumulate his latest test which suspends him for a year... the Browns season was over when that happened. I feel the punishment for Josh Gordon is unfair not only to the Browns Organization but to Josh and the Fans as well. I want his suspension rescinded immediately.. it's only fair in light of this latest ruling.
D Bone beat me to it- Life isn't fair. Those are the rule on dope. If you think Josh didn't very clearly, about 5 times have the restriction he was under explained to him- well, he's dumber than a box of rocks.
Of course, having a few drinks on a plane during the off season and getting suspended for a year because of it is monumentally unfair. Josh has had a ton of chances before that to fly right though. I didn't know the rule is the same as a kid saying the dog ate my homework.
D Bone beat me to it...
I was going to say he's gotten quicker since he got his new shirt... but then I realized he hasn't figured out that you can reverse a mirror image with nearly any Photoshop type software...
"When you have a shared vision it is a lot easier to make unpopular decisions." - Paul DePodesta "When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less." - Paul Brown Complete 2017 Browns Board Mock: http://thebrownsboard.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=46196 -
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love gordon. someone must have thrown a glass of dumb on him in his teens and he hasn't been able to wash it off yet.
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Just listen, he passed nearly 180 piss tests. The league is being unfair in it's discipline of Josh Gordon, period.
Just listen, he passed nearly 180 piss tests. The league is being unfair in it's discipline of Josh Gordon, period.
Well, if I drive home from work sober 180 times, and on #181 a cop pulls me over after I drank a quart of Margaritas at the local bar, guess what? I'm going to the slammer. Yeah- the number of tests is absurd- but the NFLPA let the league get away with it.
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Gordon quit his last game with the Browns. Or did you all forget his shit performance? Fuck him.
"You planning on having a long relationship with that glass or are you going to drink it? Drink up, man. Maybe we can get another.” - Janis Joplin, 1970. -
That's all good and dandy hoorta but after serving your time they are not going to suspend you from work for an entire year.. that's extreme.
Gordon served his time last year like a soldier for the marijuana, cut him some slack.
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That's all good and dandy hoorta but after serving your time they are not going to suspend you from work for an entire year.. that's extreme.
Gordon served his time last year like a soldier for the marijuana, cut him some slack.
That's all good and dandy hoorta but after serving your time they are not going to suspend you from work for an entire year.. that's extreme.
Gordon served his time last year like a soldier for the marijuana, cut him some slack.
To me it's like the 3 strikes law. Yea it sucks he went away for life for stealing a t-shirt from Wet Seal, but had he of not stole that car and then robbed that mini-mart, he wouldn't have gone away for life........... Exaggerations I know, but it gets my view point across.
I root for the guys who are smart enough to follow the rules, and thankfully, there are 53 of them.
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I'd like to see Josh playing but unfortunately the burden of proof is easier to prove to a judge when multiple drug tests have been failed and there is no "Braun chain of custody" issues.
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if this were the real world maybe he would get some slack working for free range people. problem is the NFL is a entity owned by people that have certain rules and free range people are old hippes that have no clue.
just like the military. just like mcdonalds. when you go to work at the ginsu knife factory and show up late 2 days a week for the 2 months you've been there then they'll put you on notice: don't show up late again or you're fired. well josh has been showing up late since someone told him he could run fast, jump high and catch a ball.
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